"Where am I, and why is it so dark ?" Tom asked himself, as he couldn't see anything around him bur utter darkness.
However, he felt like he was Standing on solid ground.
Around him there was only light was actually him as he was covered by a soft gently light "what is this light coming from me, and why do I feel that something is weird with my body, I can't be dead right ?" Wondered Tom.
He felt like there was something weird with his body, it was like...like he was in someone else's body, but that didn't make any sense as from what he could see he was in his body.
"Sob sob sob..."
As he was wondering about what the hell was happening, Tom heard a sobbing sound behind him and turned around to see who was crying.
While trying to locate the source of the sound, he struggled to discern the faces of those crying. Only a few of their features were visible. It appeared that a girl was crying and shaking something on the ground. Upon closer inspection, he realized she was shaking the body of a bleeding man with a long frame.
In an odd twist, as he fixed his gaze on the man lying on the ground, a burning fury began to stir within Tom. His stare grew chilling, and a fiery red anger surged through him.
As he peered downward, he noticed the girl's desperate attempts to revive the injured man. Tom's anger intensified, his gaze turning ice-cold, painted with a smoldering rage that cast everything in shades of red.
"What is happening...to me ?" Wondered Tom as his anger kept growing and growing to the point that even his breathing was becoming rugged.
Then he abruptly felt a tremor passing through the ground and approaching him as time passed.
When he looked back, he saw the features of an army of hundreds, if not more, heading his way.
The sight of this army only made the anger Tom was feeling to an all new level, and without he knew what was happening, he lost the control of his body.
Tom then started to walk toward the approaching army, and with each step he took, his anger intensified, his fury grew, his wrath magnified, and his rage swelled.
When he was just a dozen of meters from the approaching army, Tom's speed picked up, and he started running at the top of his speed, at this point, it really seemed his body wasn't his own and was just spectating the event unfolding without being able to influence them in any way.
Tom jumped and with a loud cry descended upon the army, however just as he was about to clash with it, his eyes snapped open, and he jerked upward, then winced from pain and rolled on the ground while panting heavily.
'What was that ?' Wondered Tom, remembering his dream.
However, before he could ponder on it, Modou came running to his tent, he helped Tom get on his makeshift bed while warning him "you were heavily wounded when we found you, although I healed you, you shouldn't make any rash movement or your wound might reopen".
At his word, Tom glanced down and saw that his body was entirely bandaged by some leaf and thought:
'That last one really beat me black and blue' thought Tom with a chuckle before wincing in pain.
"How did your battle go ?" Asked Tom.
Modou grinned and replied, "As we expected it to go"
After some minutes of checking his wounds, Modou finally left him alone in his tent.
Staring at the tent rain fly, Tom's mind drifted back to his dream, 'it felt so much real, this anger I was feeling, I never felt something so intense like that in my life'.
He pondered on the strange dream for some while before throwing it to the back of his mind, since he didn't have any clue about what this strange dream was, there was no need to think about it.
The next thing he thought about was the fact that he could now stop the time of livings beings.
'I really managed to pull it off' thought, half happy, half stunned, which was understandable, he had trained for so many hours but couldn't pull it off, but he managed to do it while in the midst of a fight.
He had heard that, no matter how many hours one put into their training, the experience gained from practice would always surpass it, but he always thought that it was bullsh*t, at least until now.
'Let's see if my mastery over temporal stasis increased'
'Status' thought Tom in his mind, immediately after a golden floating screen with writing appeared before him:
[Name: Thomas Black
{Astralums}: {Time}; {Deconstruction}
{Number of Subordinates}: 87
{???}: ???
{???}: ???]
He then pressed on {time} and the characters changed and showed :
[Astralum : Time [0/200]
Type: Deviant
abilities : {Temporal stasis}]
He then clicked on {Temporal stasis} and then saw :
[Temporal stasis
Mastery : 20%]
'My mastery sure has increased a lot since the last time' thought Tom as he started at the screen.
The first time he looked at his mastery over temporal stasis it was a mere 1%, so, having attained 20% was quite remarkable.
'However how do I increase it further, I can already stop the time of living beings so what is there to master' wondered Tom.
After some time, he dismissed the screen and closed his eyes to rest.
Tom spent the following days lying on his bed, recovering from his wounds. At first, he was concerned that another group of wisemonkeys would descend from the mountain's summit, but to his and his subordinates' relief, no group came.
It was rather strange that no one was being sent, but they wouldn't complain about having a moment of respite.
After two weeks, Tom was completely healed.
"Where are they ?" Asked Tom, looking at mooglie, the ones he was talking about were the hundreds of wisemonkies that mooglie and company had defeated.
He was planning to make them his subordinates and hopefully upgrade his physical attributes to level 2.
Mooglie guided him towards the location where the war prisoners were held.
As soon as the prisoners saw Tom, they immediately bowed to him, they had already been briefed about what was going on, so they knew that Tom was the chief of mooglie and the others, besides that, they had already seen their commandant distancing himself from the battlefield followed by Tom.
As soon as the hundreds of wisemonkies bowed to him, Tom felt his strength soar till he felt his physical attributes shattering the peak of level 1.